


The Best of Both

by Roselightfairy



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gift Fic, M/M, Old Married Couple, Sailing To Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 13:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17101916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy
Summary: Near the end of Legolas’s and Gimli’s time in Middle-Earth, Legolas takes their ship on a test sail.





	The Best of Both

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> This fic is my Christmas present to my browriter, TAFKAB/urbanspaceman. (I know it’s a few days early, but my RL is about to get busy and also I’m impatient.) It’s a bit of a—I won’t say sequel, because a) I didn’t get her permission to do it and b) I can’t do the characters exactly the way she does them—but let’s call it a fusion, inspired by her absolutely amazing story "A Marriage of Hearts" (linked above. Go check it out; it features silver fox Gimli and fake marriage!) I imagine this story taking place a couple of years after that one, when Legolas and Gimli are making their final preparations for their sail west.
> 
> Oh, and also, just for funsies, it’s based on [this tumblr post](https://urbanspaceman.tumblr.com/post/181046104113/if-legolas-is-the-elf-on-a-shelf-then-gimli-is) that she made awhile ago.
> 
> I can’t do quite what you do, bro, but you once asked me for more married couple fluff, and…here you go. Merry Christmas! <3

“To the sea, to the sea…”

Legolas’s lips form the shapes of the words, but the wind whisks them from his lips so swiftly that he cannot be certain he has sung them aloud.  The air roars in his ears and pounds at his skin, drowning out even the vibrations of his throat and chest—but still the words echo inside his mind and his heart, body and soul alike turned unerringly towards the west.

And yet he can still feel the eyes on his back, a counterweight just as strong, keeping him from flying forward untethered.

In no other place in the world, he thinks, could he ever feel so equally tugged in two directions at once.

He rises from his knees to stand on tiptoe, balancing on the bow of his boat and listening to the flapping of his sail in the wind, arms outstretched.  It is a precarious perch, but he knows he will not fall.

There are hooks in his heart, he has long known it, hooks perfectly placed for two different lines to latch onto—and latch they have.  Now he stands poised at the very front of his ship, gazing forward to the west—and yet he knows that even if he leaned forward with all his strength, the line tugging in the other direction would be enough to keep him from tumbling into the waves.

The other direction…

He turns, swiveling in the direction of the new lurch in his chest, and the sight steals his breath and his balance, until he must sink to a seated position against the mast, the boom pressing into his shoulder.  He can feel the pressure now, the wind in the sail pushing back against him and holding him up, and yet…

Gimli sits on the wharf, his legs over the edge, his boots discarded beside him and trousers pushed up to the knees, water swirling around his ankles.  Of late he has stopped complaining about the temperature, but Legolas knows the chill is not to his liking.

The pang in his chest pulls him to his feet; he scrambles down from the bow and goes to the wheel at the stern of the boat.  He tacks hard into the wind, ducking as the sail swings over his head to the other side of the boat, and ignoring the pull inside him as he turns his back on the west.

It is growing more difficult to do that, these days.  But it is still possible—as long as he can fix his gaze on Gimli’s face instead.

That is a task that will never be difficult at all; Legolas could stare at Gimli’s face for thousands of years and never grow bored.  For years it has fascinated him, even when he dared not speak of it—the wisps of beard that rustle with Gimli’s breath when he speaks—or when he is beyond speech—the keen gleam in his dark eyes when he sees through whatever secret Legolas has foolishly attempted to hide from him, the quirk of his eyebrows and lips when he tries and fails to hide a smile.  Legolas has long thought that he could happily make a study of the most minute changes in Gimli’s expressions—and that was before even these last few years when so many more have opened up to him.

He cannot help but smile to think of them now, his belly warming: the fierce hunger in Gimli’s gaze when Legolas lies bare before him, the slack softness of his mouth in drowsy afterglow, the new unveiled sweetness in his eyes when he wakes in the morning and looks at Legolas beside him in their shared bed.

Gimli pushes himself slowly to his feet when Legolas approaches, rising more deliberately than he would have in the past.  He is old now.  It is plain to be seen in the whiteness of his hair, in the lines of his face and the care he takes with his motions.  Yet sometimes it still takes Legolas by surprise, for his words and his hands have more power than ever before, to raise Legolas higher than the proudest of mountains or melt him down to a puddle of molten fire—

He shakes himself—the wharf is nearly upon him, and Gimli has donned his boots, his grumbles of impatience audible even over the wind. Legolas frees the mooring rope from its neat coils and tosses the end to Gimli where he stands, waiting until he has caught it with a grunt before returning to the wheel to guide the boat in with careful hand.

“A long sail, this time,” says Gimli once the boat is safely tied up and Legolas has leapt to the dock.

“Aye,” Legolas agrees, resting a hand on the side of the boat—more for something to do than any other reason.  “Did you think I would not return?”

The jest half-sticks in his throat, not as smooth as he wished; he bites his lip as Gimli turns to look at him, his eyes serious enough to cut through Legolas’s attempt at humor.  “I wonder every time you go if this is the time you will not return.”

The string tugging Legolas west gives a sharp yank.  He opens his mouth, but neither breath nor words come out.

Gimli makes a gruff sound, as though impatient with himself, and then straightens his shoulders as best he can and gives a firm smack to the neck of the horse he carved to adorn their prow—in memory of their first and truest steed.  “Well,” he says.  “The boat seemed to carry you in and out all right.”

“It did.”  Legolas smiles fondly at his husband, and then at the horse, a reminder of the past and a hope for the future.  “Fleet and strong, it embodies the best of both of us, I think.”

“Then it is for the better that you enlisted my help,” said Gimli.  “Had you carried on with your initial plans—”

“I know, I know.”  Legolas rolls his eyes, but laughs, and leans down to drape his free arm over Gimli’s shoulders.  “It is better this way, anyway.”  He pauses for a long moment, and then says, “You know I will not go without you.”

“It would be foolish of you, certainly, after all the measures you took to bring me with you.”  Gimli grumbles the words, looking away and clearly striving for lightness, but Legolas cannot let it be.  He will have to break the news sometime, anyway.

“That was a long sail, yes,” he says, the grip of his hand tightening on Gimli’s bicep.  The skin is looser than once it was, the muscle below somewhat smaller, but still iron-hard beneath its padding.  “But it will not happen again.”

Gimli looks sharply up at him.  “Do you mean—”

Legolas nods.  “The boat is ready for us.  For you.  The next sail will be the last.”

“Oh.”

That is all Gimli says for a long time, and unbidden the worries of old rise up in Legolas’s chest.  “You are—are you still certain?” he blurts.  He looks over at where his other hand still rests against their boat, unable to meet Gimli’s eyes.  “That you wish to come?”  It is not fair, perhaps, but he remembers so vividly the night, too few years ago, when he asked Gimli to sail with him, to wed him.  When he gave voice to all his long-pondered schemes to extend Gimli’s life, to challenge the Valar themselves, if he must.  But all that is for naught if Gimli will not sail with him now.

The strings tug harder in both directions, as though threatening to pull him in two.

But then Gimli speaks.  “Of course I am,” he says.  “You ought not think to question the constancy of a dwarf, my husband.  And besides, how could I pass up a chance to see the Lady once more?”

“And you speak of the constancy of dwarves!” Legolas protests, but he laughs, and Gimli looks up at him with that sparkle in his eyes that Legolas has come to know belongs only to him.  In response, he takes his hand off the boat at last to curl it at the back of Gimli’s neck.  Gimli squawks at the chill of his fingers, but he puts an arm around Legolas’s waist in turn, and they walk thus entwined away from the wharf and back to their lodging.

The west tugs ever at Legolas’s heart, but with the warmth of Gimli’s laughter in his ears and body against his side, it is easier than ever to resist.

And soon—so soon, now—the time will come when he no longer needs to be tugged at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Forgot to add this in earlier, but the idea of Arod as their figurehead is actually stolen from [this lovely piece of fanart](http://bofurs-wife.tumblr.com/post/76907772338/its-arod-it-was-the-first-time-and-the-only) I saw some time ago, and I really wanted to use it!


End file.
